Tag: virtual money

Bitcoin Price Explosion: Luis Fernando Mises – Episode 167

The Story: The prices of digital currencies are going crazy

In late 2013, the price of Bitcoin started exploding, going from around $120, to close to $1200, within 3 months. People in the digital currency realm were stunned and amazed, and many people (including myself) started buying up currencies, chasing the Bitcoin bullet train. “This time it’s different,” we thought. “Who knows if the price will ever come down?” we thought. A few months later, the price came rolling down, eventually settling around $450. A lot of people surely lost a lot of money in those months, buying high and selling low. That was when I learned a simple lesson: the best time to buy an asset is when nobody gives a shit about it.

Now it’s June 2017, and in the past three months we’ve seen Bitcoin shoot up from around $1000 to more than $2500 – even to $3000 in some markets. I see people on social media boasting about their winnings, parading the fact that they have assets worth hacking. I tell them to be careful, that trading at all time highs can be a recipe for disaster. They tell me “The dollar is crashing against crypto!” and “This time it’s different!” I know some will probably lose a lot when the bull market ends, still believing that they’re digital currency genii and know how to pick winners. Others will prudently and consistently take profits, and wait for another opportunity to buy big.

In this episode, I welcome back Luis Fernando Mises, business consultant, entrepreneur, spiritual healer and digital currency investor, to discuss the latest rise in Bitcoin and altcoins, and what pitfalls people should look out for. We talk about ease of use in virtual currency, potential problems with Bitcoin, and spiritual perspectives to be gained when you lose a lot of money. We also discuss the problems with gossip in the liberty movement, how many are focused on the “telenovela” of liberty, and how that energy can be directed into something more fulfilling.

Join us on another bank-breaking episode of … The Paradise Paradox!

The Eps:

Shamanic aliens – Luis Fernando Mises: Episode 146

Shamans with guns – Luis Fernando Mises: Episode 95

The Links:

Emancipated Human

The Cash:

If you enjoy our posts, please become a patron on Patreon, or have a look at The Paradise Paradox’s page on Steemit where you can join, earn money, and upvote our posts to help support the show! You can also find a lot of additional content which is not posted on this site, with Kurt’s posts on Steemit and Aaron’s posts on Steemit.

We really appreciate all of your contributions! Every cent and satoshi we receive lets us know that we’re doing something worthwhile, that you are entertained by our program, and that you’re starting to question what you know more and more. Please be generous. Donate to The Paradise Paradox. Or buy some stuff on Amazon using this link. Or buy some of our great T-shirts here.

The Episode:

To download the audio, right click and press “save as”.

Remember to subscribe on iTunes or subscribe on Pocket Casts.

If you enjoyed the episode, don’t keep it a secret! Feel free to share it on Twitter, Tumblr, Facebook, Reddit, or your office bathroom wall.

The Dash instamine and why it doesn’t matter

When a digital currency is mined before it’s released to the public, that may be a symptom of a scam – but it doesn’t prove without a doubt that it’s a scam. It may be an indicator that the creators just intend to boost up the value of the currency a little, sell their holdings, and leave. However, if we find that the creators continue to work on the coin long after any get-rich-quick scheme should have expired, is it still reasonable to say that the coin is a scam?

 

Bitcoin vs Dash – Ridiculous comments on Dash

The Story: Fun, interesting and exciting comments about Dash

If you bring up the cryptocurrency Dash among people who know anything about it, you’ll probably get a diverse range of opinions. Some people hate it and believe it’s nothing but a fraud. Other people love it and believe it’s the currency of the future. And others still believe its rise has more to do with sex appeal than any usefulness.

In this episode, Kurt digs into the cesspool known as “the YouTube comment section” and responds to the most interesting and bizarre among them. He discusses SegWit and how it causes mental blocks among Bitcoiners, user experience, Bitcoin as a blue chip company or international clearing house, the security of Bitcoin compared to Dash, the sex appeal of Dash, the fantastic dream of cryptocurrency, what Dash’s marketing says about it, Dash as a business, centralisation, whether someone could control 50% of masternodes, the instamine or fast mine of Dash, what is a Ponzi scheme and whether Dash is one, and finally whether Dash is just a big scam in general.

Join us on a crypto adventure in the next exciting episode of … The Paradise Paradox!

The Eps:

Why Amanda B. Johnson loves Dash – Episode 155

Dash vs Bitcoin – which will reach mass adoption first? – Episode 154

The Links:

Dash Central

The Cash:

If you enjoy our posts, please have a look at The Paradise Paradox’s page on Steemit where you can join, earn money, and upvote our posts to help support the show! You can also find a lot of additional content which is not posted on this site, with Kurt’s posts on Steemit and Aaron’s posts on Steemit.

We really appreciate all of your contributions! Every cent and satoshi we receive lets us know that we’re doing something worthwhile, that you are entertained by our program, and that you’re starting to question what you know more and more. Please be generous. Donate to The Paradise Paradox. Or buy some stuff on Amazon using this link. Or buy some of our great T-shirts here.

The Episode:

To download the audio, right click and press “save as”.

Remember to subscribe on iTunes or subscribe on Pocket Casts.

If you enjoyed the episode, don’t keep it a secret! Feel free to share it on Twitter, Tumblr, Facebook, Reddit, or your office bathroom wall.

Bitcoin vs Dash – Security & Bitcoin as blue chip

An interesting argument people make for the long-term viability of Bitcoin is this: It’s fine to use Dash for fast transactions and private transactions, buying cups of coffee or whatever… but for big transactions people don’t need fast confirmations, and so they will probably continue to use Bitcoin for certain large, cryptocurrency clearing-house transactions. My question is always, okay, they don’t need fast confirmations, but they don’t really gain anything by having slow confirmations. So why are people going to continue to use Bitcoin?

The forthcoming answer is security. It’s true, Bitcoin has been around longer, has had more tests, and so the network is more secure. However, having a secure network resistant to hacking is actually only one part of security. Another part is, how many people have lost thousands or millions of dollars over the years due to negligence or malicious actors? A lot.

If you have to be a tech nerd to secure your Bitcoins, that means it’s actually not secure, and it’s definitely not ready for mass adoption.

The other thing is, if you’re trying to defend Bitcoin compared to Dash, you’re fighting a retreating battle. Sure it does privacy, speed, user experience and adaptation to a changing market better than Bitcoin, but other than that, what does it do? If Dash has the incentives in place to improve in all these areas, then surely it has the potential to improve in security as well. After all, security is one of the most important parts of user experience. If your coins are constantly getting stolen or the network is going down, that gives the worst possible user experience.

Bitcoin vs Dash – Bitcoin mental blocks: SegWit & UX

A lot of people left comments on my videos saying “If SegWit comes in…” “Just you wait and see if Segregated Witness comes in…” What they don’t get is, that’s a huge “if”. The problem isn’t just that there are unconfirmed transactions now… the problem is, we have no idea how or when the solutions will be implemented. That is the real problem, and Bitcoin maximalists have a huge blind spot for that. It seems to be because they’re only thinking about Bitcoin in terms of the technology, not in terms of the human factors – the governance, the politics. It’s as if they say “Well the technology exists so it’s all going to be fine.” And when you ask “How is that tech going to be implemented?” they say “the technology exists so it’s all going to be fine.”

You also see this flavour of thinking when it comes to user experience. They say “I don’t care about having to copy and paste a Bitcoin address” Or they bring up QR codes. It’s true, QR codes give an improved user experience compared to long confusing strings of characters that make up Bitcoin addresses. However, QR codes pose their own problems. I’ve often been on the web looking at a QR code thinking, what am I supposed to do – point my phone at my monitor? That just seems weird. If people had to scan a QR code to get to Google or Facebook, the web probably wouldn’t be as popular as it is today.

If you want a service to get popular, you have to extend your empathy, imagine yourself in the shoes of a complete noob and try to feel what they would in that situation. If you get caught up thinking “I’m comfortable with this (so I’m sure everyone else will be too),” you’re confining your tech to be used by an elite few.